Chapter 4 - Five Years of Silence
I did not sleep.
At 3:17 a.m., I found Gideon in the kitchen making coffee.
“You said Kyle was right.”
“Yes.”
“That is not a confession.”
“It was intended to be.”
“You negotiate billion-dollar contracts for a living. Surely you can do better.”
Gideon looked at me over the rim of his coffee cup.
“I’ve been in love with you for four years, seven months and approximately three weeks.”
I forgot every intelligent response available to me.
“Approximately?”
“I don’t remember the exact Tuesday.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
For the first time since Kyle’s crash.
Then I realized what he had said.
“Four years?”
“Seven months.”
“You watched me get engaged.”
“Yes.”
“You congratulated me.”
“One of the more difficult sentences I’ve ever spoken.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you worked for me.”
“That’s it?”
“No.”
He put down the cup.
“My life isn’t clean, Emery.”
“I know.”
“No. You know the sanitized version.”
I folded my arms.
“Then unsanitize it.”
For the first time, Gideon looked uncomfortable.
“My father built Ferris Group by combining legitimate construction and freight companies with businesses that were not legitimate.”
“How illegitimate?”
“Enough.”
“That is evasive.”
“It is also protective.”
“Stop protecting me from information.”
His jaw tightened.
“My father ran gambling rooms, collection crews and smuggling routes. When he died, I inherited all of it.”
“And?”
“I shut down the things I wouldn’t tolerate.”
“What remained?”
“Men who owed us money. Men who owed us loyalty. Information networks. Private security operations. Certain arrangements with unions and freight operators.”
“That sounds like a very polished way of saying organized crime.”
“It is.”
I sat down.
Oddly, I wasn’t shocked.
Maybe because I had known without knowing.
“And now?”
“I’ve spent twelve years dismantling it without creating a war that would kill everyone involved.”
“Are you telling me you’re going legitimate?”
“I’m telling you I’ve been trying.”
“Why?”
He looked toward the dark windows.
“My mother.”
I had never heard him mention her.
“She died when I was seventeen. A car bomb intended for my father.”
My anger disappeared.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
The words were quiet.
“She had nothing to do with his business. But his enemies didn’t care. I decided then that if I ever cared about someone, I would never make her collateral.”
Understanding hit me.
“That’s why you never said anything.”
“One reason.”
“And the other?”
“You deserved the ability to choose without your paycheck being attached to the decision.”
For five years I had imagined dozens of explanations for Gideon’s distance.
Indifference had been the most painful.
It had never occurred to me that restraint might hurt him too.
I moved closer.
“So you were going to let me marry Alister?”
His eyes hardened.
“Until I learned how he obtained you.”
“Obtained.”
“I chose the word deliberately.”
My phone buzzed.
A text from Alister.
I EXPECT YOU AT HARTWELL SATURDAY.
No question.
No concern.
An instruction.
Gideon read my face.
“What?”
I showed him.
He stared at the message.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“He thinks you’re still going.”
“You want me there?”
“I want access to his donor suite.”
That shifted the atmosphere.
“What’s in it?”
“We believe Calder’s chairman will meet Alister before the gala.”
“We?”
Gideon ignored the question.
“Campaign events generate enormous amounts of data. Guest lists. donor records. private schedules. Staff rotate constantly. It’s one of the few places Alister becomes careless.”
“So I go in wearing his gown and spy on my fiancé.”
“Ex-fiancé.”
“I haven’t broken the engagement.”
“You have in my head.”
I stared at him.
He looked completely serious.
Despite myself, I smiled.
“Possessive.”
“Extremely.”
“Dangerous trait.”
“I have several.”
The smile disappeared when he handed me a tiny device.
It looked like a pearl earring.
“Microphone?”
“Yes.”
“You already had jewelry-sized surveillance equipment?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered.”
Saturday arrived too quickly.
The Hartwell Hotel glittered above Boston like a monument to money.
I wore the midnight-blue gown.
Alister smiled when he saw me.
“You look perfect.”
Not beautiful.
Perfect.
There was a difference.
He kissed my cheek.
His hand settled at my lower back.
Across the ballroom, Gideon stood beside a venture-capital executive in a black tuxedo.
He did not look at me.
Which meant he was watching everything.
Alister guided me through donors, lobbyists and politicians.
For ninety minutes, I smiled.
Then he leaned close.
“I need twenty minutes upstairs.”
“Campaign meeting?”
“Yes.”
“Anything I can help with?”
His fingers tightened slightly around my waist.
“No.”
That was my invitation.
Five minutes after he left, I excused myself.
The donor suite was on the eighteenth floor.
Gideon’s security team had already duplicated Alister’s access card.
I entered.
Empty.
“Two minutes,” Gideon’s voice whispered through my earring.
I searched the desk.
Nothing.
Cabinet.
Nothing.
Laptop.
Locked.
Then I noticed a leather portfolio beneath the sofa.
Inside were donor lists.
Payment schedules.
And a photograph.
My photograph.
Taken five years earlier.
The day I interviewed at Ferris Group.
My blood stopped.
“Gideon.”
“What?”
“He knew me before Kyle’s company failed.”
Silence.
Then:
“Get out.”
I turned.
The suite door opened.
Alister stepped inside.
He looked at the portfolio in my hands.
Then at me.
He closed the door.
May you like
Slowly.
“I was wondering,” he said, “how long Ferris would take to show you.”
